variations on the word ache
by arsenous elation
Summary: like a field of stars, like a folded memory that is not you. —Mike/nonbinary!Hange—


Title: variations on the word ache.  
Pairing/s: Mike, Hange  
Summary: like a field of stars, like a folded memory that is not you.

A/N: I don't even know why writing this hurt. Unedited. May be subject to revision. Cover photo is edited by me, texture is by northerndawn in DA. Nonbinary Hange.

* * *

variations on the word ache.  
**「 **_mike x hange _**」**

_**→•←**_

_« __by arsenous elation _»

_"...like a field of stars, like a folded memory that is not you. "_

_******→•←**_

ache:  
I. is the prospect of something you can never have  
II. is the burn you get for surviving  
III. is when you are both powerless to save lives  
IV. is the desire to escape this life  
V. is a memory that is not you  
VI. is a field of stars

* * *

_******→•←**_

I.

"I once read in a book," Hange starts to say, voice tremulous, hand sweeping the expanse of the horizon, "that beyond this wall,there are other worlds. There are other 'us'. Mike, are you listening? Different versions of our selves exist. But these other worlds, these other lives, are not exactly the same..."

Mike nods as if he understands, keeps his arms tucked under his cloak. Here on top of Wall Maria, everything is colder and quieter; the wind rushes by their ears, breaths visible in the twilight.

"In another world, there would be no Titans. In another life, we could be lovers."

Mike exhales sharply and forgets to inhale. For a moment they are both still. The dead weight of Hange's words settles on his chest, and he opens his mouth to say—

Hange laughs lightly at some joke Mike didn't hear. In a fumble to hide his failed attempt, Mike tries to laugh along. But it is still there, that heavy thing clenching like a desperate plea. A wistful longing that, _please, please, _let there be something good in this world and by god, let them find it. (He already has).

___******→•←**_

II.

Levi is not the only one who grieves.

Somewhere in the dark recesses of the barracks, Mike finds Hange drunk, smelling of mourning and the funeral pyres. Hange's clothes are stained with ash and dirt, cheeks marred with shadows. He notices how Hange's hands are dark and blistered like they've tried to find something out of the embers.

Perhaps to find the bodies of comrades they left behind.

In three long strides, Mike is beside Hange, kneeling, holding Hange's wrists. "Hange."

Hange sees him looking at the blisters and laughs. "I was checking if burning flesh is as hot as the Titans," Hange jokes, but it comes out as bitter and choked.

In the dark, Mike lifts Hange's hands to his lips. He blows on them, gently, to soothe even as he feels like he is combusting on the inside. It is at this moment that ache becomes a shadow, a persistent question rising before them like ghosts. Like memories of the newly-dead.

_How do you find it in yourself to forgive?  
_(that you survived–but not them?)

_******→•←**_

III.

They wait under the great shadow of the Wall. The small wind that lingers here is cool, is almost a relief to their sun-burnt skin. Mike leans against the stone edifice while Hange sits on the grass beside him; together they stare out over Trost District, the summer sun spilling white hot over what humanity has left.

Mike steals a glance at his companion. All Survey Corps operations have halted ever since the fall of Wall Maria; mankind has to conserve its resources now that they've lost a third of their territory, so now they serve to hand out rations and keep the uneasy peace among the districts of Wall Rose. Seeing Hange's face gaunt and eyes bleak, Mike is almost sure that he would prefer to go out of the wall and face the titans rather see hunger slowly carving the people's stomachs concave. A quick death is much more preferable than a slow, torturous one.

"Are you alright?" his mouth is dry and his limbs feel like they are going to unravel any minute now.

That is the catalyst and Hange seems to disintegrate before him, mouth going slack with an interminable truth. "It won't be long now..."

Which also means: "Mike, they're going to let the people die."

Man is selfish, cruel but terribly dear, his mother once told him.

"We could..." he stops himself when he catches the defeat on Hange's face before it is turned immediately away. Mike swallows the lump in his throat, looks at his hands trembling from the effort. These hands are trained to fight monstrosities over five meters tall, but they are not prepared for the monstrosities of men.

In the corner of his eye. Hange's shoulders start to shake.

_******→•←**_

IV.

The first moment he sees Hange tremble, the second it becomes too unbearable, Mike has to look away. He listens to Hange breathe fast fast faster as the squads stay deathly still, hands jumpy, eyes trained onto the Commander standing above them all.

Mike looks up at the sun-drenched silhouette of Erwin Smith, wanting nothing but another life, another kind of reality. On his right, he can smell the wild, pungent, torrid scent of the Titans. Beside him, he swears he can smell Hange's heart leaking something horribly familiar—berserking, dripping of something truly ugly.

Fear screams in his veins and it sinks into him: this is your life, you can't run from it.

_******→•←**_

V.

The rustle of a page on a lazy afternoon. Between expeditions, there are days when they can almost give in to the lure of complacency. There are days when they can almost forget.

Mike stretches himself onto the bed, sighs in contentment. On the other side of the room, Hange sits by the window, book in hand. _Atlas of the World, _it says on the front, well-worn and forbidden.

Somewhere outside, laughter of soldiers.

"There was once a boy."

The way Hange's voice carries in the air twists something unnameable in Mike. He turns to see Hange looking out the window, face pensive under the golden light, fingers poised over a page. Hange has told him this once and in an instant, they are both pulled back in the past, lost in the glimmers of long-long-ago.

Mike pictures it:

On the banks of a river, a tree, a boy, and a book. The day is clear and bright, crisp and melancholy. Light dances through the shadows of the leaves, dances across the dark skin of a young Hange. The stillness between them is languorous, but with traces of an argument that has ended prematurely. See the way Hange's hands are closed in fists, teeth bared in a grimace.

Mike will never know what happened in this memory. Even if he pictured himself in the place of the boy, he will always be an outsider to Hange's life in this particular moment in time. The boy has no name, will never have a name, because Hange decreed it that way.

Hange turns a page, but does not read. This is how the afternoon passes: one remembering, one trying to conjure himself in the memory.

The boy in the memory snaps the book shut and the light moves to illuminate the title. _Atlas of the World._

___******→•←**_

VI.

He looks at Hange and wonders, _do you know that I love you?_

Mike looks up at the sky, its canopy brimming with stars. But he doesn't pay attention to the pinpoints of light, watches the dark spaces between them instead.

In here, ache is difficult to pinpoint. It comes from too many things all at once. Mike reaches up, runs a hand over the plane of his chest, wonders how the ache in it can echo the emptiness of the void above them.

Mike surveys the horizon yawning before them and all he's hearing is, _in another life we could be lovers._

_But not in this one._


End file.
